Bible Too Liberal? Fix it!

From the Christisn Science Monitor:

Indianapolis – The Bible, it turns out, is too liberal.

At least the Conservative Bible Project thinks so. The group has set itself the task of "translating" the Bible in a more conservative way, so as to eliminate liberal "misinterpretations" and prevent liberal "misconstruals."

This is not a joke. Consider Conservapedia, the conservative perspective Wikipedia site that features this translation project.

When it first started, it was difficult to tell if it was an authentic conservative phenomenon or a parody along the lines of "The Colbert Report." Attempts to parody an extreme group often simply end up resembling an even more extreme, possibly very fringe, but equally real group.

But it has become clear that what looks like an attempt at satire is a real project proposed by people who don't seem to grasp the irony of their endeavor.

Now, with similar irony, the Conservative Bible Project plans to replace text in the Bible, which is often open to more than one interpretation, with new text that will be in accord with how the members of the project interpret the text; in some cases, what they think it really ought to say even though it doesn't.

Surely you won't be surprised that the "translation" is not a translation, but rather a rewriting of the Bible to conservative purposes. No attention whatsoever is given to the meaning of the words in the original languages. The goal is to make the Bible all that a proper conservative Bible should be. Whatever it takes, make the Good Book say what you want it to say.

The author of the article, James F. McGrath, an associate professor of religion at Butler University in Indianapolis, says:

These "translators," if they are serious about what they are proposing to do, are exalting themselves above the Bible and, from the perspective of conservative Christianity, above God.

If nothing else, the project illustrates the fact that "conservative" and "Bible-believing" are not the same thing, despite what you'll often hear.

Whaaat! Say it ain't so. What do you think? Here are the guidelines from the folks at Conservapedia for their ideal Bible.

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[2]

1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these)
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[3]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent;[4] Defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction[5] by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[6] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

I don't know about you, but I'm pre-ordering my copy. Gimme that ol' time conservative Bible.

Thanks to Chris for the link.